162 



Domestic Notices. ■ — Scotland. 



ceptable to some of your readers to know the treatment under which it 

 has been brought to flower, I will give you a short account of it. I had 

 the |)!ant shiflc-l and much disrooted in "August 1825, and during the fol- 



lowing winter comparatively starved ; it was in the spring following placed 

 in a temperature which was gradually raised to 70° of fire heat, and co- 

 piously watered with water in which sheep's dung had been steeped, and 

 in May it produced flowers, I was apprehensive it would die after flower- 

 ing, as is the case with many plants that flower seldom ; it however pro- 

 duced a growth of leaves in the August following. It was kept in a pine- 

 apple heat during the following winter, spring, and summer (1826-7), till 

 it produced another growth of leaves, and in the latter end of July I had it 

 moved into the open air, where it remained without any water, except 

 what fell from the atmosphere, till the approach of rather sharp frosts in 

 the mornings; I then had it moved under the shelter of a vinery, where it 

 was comparatively starved till last Christmas, when it was moved into a 

 temperature which was gradually raised to 70° of fire heat, and it showed 

 flower in the end of February. 



I am led to consider this a male plant; for, although there is at the top 

 of the scales the appearance of a stigma, I cannot detect any thing like a 

 germen in the scales, or at or in the stem of the catkin, and undoubtedly 

 the yellow powder which falls out of the globules as they expand is the 

 farina, for surely it cannot be the seed. I am, dear Su", &c. — John NisbetU 



